Waffling

This should be my final post for the year.

2014 has been another extraordinary year.  It was an emotional year, but not the bad kind like 2011.  It started with my 40th birthday, which marks the end of the mid life crisis, bottom of the valley feeling.  Slowly, I picked myself up, and steadily moved forward.  In the 2nd half of the year, I changed job again; took up new responsibilities, made new friends, and made adjustments to my daily routine.  In October, I came to realise the start of the real primary school academic life of Lynn. At the end of it (Oct), we celebrated any joyous year of having Lynn.  And, yesterday morning, I told WK what had been on my mind for the past 2 months.  Not sharing here yet though.

Wishing all my friends a great 2015!

[Christmas eve, Wee San calls it "waffling", meaning eat waffle with me.]

Dec'14 update: Birthday vs Christmas

This year's family christmas gathering is held at May's house, as we did for the past few years.  The one very special aspect of this celebration was that Mavis, the birthday girl, specially requested for birthday gift to be separate from Christmas gift.  The poor gal, whose birthday is 21st Dec, seldom get 2 gifts in a year, like the rest of her cousins.  We joked about it, claiming that her gift is always twice the value of the rest of cousins'.  But eventually, all of us hear her, most probably empathised with her, and got her 2 gifts.

This year I also contributed to making (instead of buying) one food item, which is potato salad.  I had a relatively fun time researching and making enquiry about the ingredients and recipe.  Shopping for the right kind of potato and sour cream was challenging for me.  It turn out well enough!

Here are the pictures:
Lynn wanted to wear her purple dress for the party.  The deer hones were from Diaso

Me and birthday gal, our dear eldest niece/child, who turned 14, which has some significance for the teochews (Wk's mum and Mavis' dad):

I realised that both Chloe and Brayden will automatically pose for the camera with their best smile (well trained :), so here a beautiful picture of Brayden:

The focal point:

May's family, getting ready for the birthday celebration:

Candid pic of Mavis:

".... ,happy birthday to you...."

A picture of my potato salad:

Right now, it is 27th Dec, 745am.   Merry Christmas and happy new year to all..

Dec'14 update: Loom band making and sale

This school holiday, Lynn did a lot of loom band bracelet and pencil topper.  She's not interested in making the bands for leisure, but instead she did them for sale through me and Wk' mum.  I'm not sure if I am telling the right values.  Anyway, the holiday's almost over, and we had already sold close to 30 items.  Here are some pictures:

Started off with 2 kinds of regular bracelet.
(i) Twisted bracelet:

(ii) Straightaway bracelet

Then I bought round beads.  After experimenting mixing the bead into the design myself, Lynn actually picked up the technic and improvised:

(i) twisted bracelet with round beads

(ii) Still twisted bracelet, with heart shape beads

(ii) Fish tail bracelet, with alphabet beads:

Here's the blue, white, black bracelet with blue star bead she did for WK:

She did many pencil toppers, mostly sold to Fengxian, who gave out as Christmas presents to her friends.

There are a few more "name bracelets" which are still work in progress.  I will post the pictures here once ready.

Dec'14 update: Adventure Cove Waterpark

WK was out of town for approximately 10 days which span over 2 weekends.  On the first one, I took Lynn to the inline skating trial class.  On the 2nd weekend, I took Lynn to Adventure Cove Waterpark at Sentosa.  If he was around, he's "in charged" of these kind of sporty events.

Unfortunately, it was "inconvenient" for me just 2 days before that weekend.  So I end up not playing with them (May's whole family went with us), and I took some pictures for them.

It is a fun place, I hope to go back there again next time.  Here are the pictures:

On our way there, outside the Maritime Museum:

, 

There were some very pretty looking boats under construction outside the Maritime Museum

The cousins were asked to take a group picture together, but Mabel sulked...

We reached early, slightly before 10am, but were allowed in.  It took us quite sometime to navigate the changing and locker area.  Finally we realised that it is impossible for those who wants to play to carry any belonging (such as mobile phone/camera, water bottle, nor even slippers).

Here's the first ride that the 6 of them got into, which is the river ride.  It was very enjoyable in the morning when it was less crowded.

While they were queuing for slides, I saw this beautiful butterfly resting on the floor:

Here pictures of them snorkelling in the Rainbow reef.  This is Mavis:

There were about 15 different rides and attractions.  I took some precaution and tried a few.  I not the sporty and adventurous kind, but I have always like water park, and it's milder attractions, like the wave pool, and the big bucket treehouse.  We played almost the whole day (10 to 4pm).  Lynn enjoyed it thoroughly.  I hope we can be there real soon.

Dec'14 Update: Activity in the park

Lynn requested to go to a snowing country for our next family holiday.  WK used skiing as a reason to get Lynn to learn inline skating (we wanted Lynn to take up sports).

On 6th Dec, I took Lynn to Bishan Park for the trial class.  Last Sat, we got her a brand new set of skates, helmet and protective gears.  She will take lessons starting from Jan, but now she can already skate quite a fair bit.  On Christmas day, the 3 of us went Bishan Park for a short workout.

Here are 2 pictures taking during the trial class:

While she was having lesson, I tried out my new I phone 6+

Dec'14 update: Log cake baking class

This Dec, I arranged for many activities for Lynn.  One of my favourite was the mini log cake baking class, because I attended with her and Mabel, and I enjoyed it.  It was actually my first baking experience.  A lot of steps were simplified for us, so it was fast and fun.  Here are the pictures:

We arrived quite early, and choose our seats.

100 grams of flour and a 100 grams of sugar (!), 4 eggs, vanilla extract and some raising agent..  Looks so beautiful..

Baking made simple due to electric mixer

At first, I didn't plan to post this "so auntie" pic.  But it is the only pic that shows the batter beautifully spread out on the baking tray, before sending it to the oven.

When it came out of the oven, we were to wait for it to cool, so the girls blew at it :)

Deco time! The girls just kept adding more and more stuff, and I got to "yell" at them to stop (cos we are sharing the stuff with everyone at the desk)

Mabel's on the left, and Lynn's on the right:

Mine!

We got the organiser to take a picture for us.  It was great fun!

Slowly

I was on leave today, which is Boxing day 2014.  My last holiday of the year, before a busy 2015.  Indulged in my favourite drink this morning..  Slowly, slowly..